Tears are sometimes an inappropriate response to death. When a life has been lived completely honestly, completely successfully, o...r just completely, the correct response to death's perfect punctuation mark is a smile.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
An accent mark, perhaps, instead of a whole western accent--a point of punctuation rather than a uniform twang. That is how it sho...uld be worn: as a quiet point of character reference, an apt phrase of sartorial allusion--macho, sotto voce.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Waldo Lydecker: Laura considered me the wisest, the wittiest, the most interesting man she'd ever met. I was in complete accord wi...th her on that point.... She thought me also the kindest, the gentlest, the most sympathetic man in the world. Detective Mark McPherson: Did you agree with her there, too? Waldo Lydecker: McPherson, you won't understand this, but I've tried to become the kindest, gentlest, the most sympathetic man in the world. Detective Mark McPherson: Have any luck? Waldo Lydecker: Let me put it this way: I shall be sincerely sorry to see my neighbor's children devoured by wolves.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Thou blind man's mark, thou fool's self-chosen snare, Fond Fancy's scum and dregs of scattered thought,... Band of all evils, cradle of causeless care, Thou web of will whose end is never wrought; Desire! desire, I have too dearly bought With price of mangled mind thy worthless ware;LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Three characteristics mark all confirmed expatriates: (1) slowness on the up-take, (2) the tendency to personalize the impersonal-...-interpreting in terms of politeness or of policy what should be kept clearly in terms of ideas, (3) the tendency to orientalize one's attitude toward women.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »